The bid to corner world's bluefin tuna market

Japan's sprawling Mitsubishi conglomerate has cornered a 40 per cent share of the world market in bluefin tuna, one of the world's most endangered fish.

In the documentary film The End of the Line, Roberto Mielgo, a former bluefin fisherman who travels the world monitoring catches, claims that Mitsubishi buys and sells 60 per cent of the threatened fish and that it has expanded its freezer capacity to hold extra bluefin.

LINK (Via: The Indepemdent)

Holy mackerel: A breakthrough in tuna science?

LINK  (Via: The Global Post)

Systemic Problems at Canada's DFO

The Skeena Fisheries Blog has posted excerpts and a link to the Office of the Auditor General Canada and her "2009 Spring Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development." The report confirms what critics of the DOF in Canada have been saying for years.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Environment Canada cannot demonstrate that fish habitat is being adequately protected as the Fisheries Act requires. In the 23 years since the Habitat Policy was adopted, many parts of the Policy have been implemented only partially by Fisheries and Oceans Canada or not at all. The Department does not measure habitat loss or gain. It has limited information on the state of fish habitat across Canada—that is, on fish stocks, the amount and quality of fish habitat, contaminants in fish, and overall water quality. Fisheries and Oceans Canada still cannot determine the extent to which it is progressing toward the Policy’s long-term objective of a net gain in fish habitat. There has been little progress since 2001, when we last reported on this matter.

LINK

Russian River monitoring to bolster steelhead population

Photo: Mark Aronoff

Biologists are closely monitoring the water quality in the lagoon that forms at the mouth of the Russian River at Jenner, a critical but often overlooked habitat for young steelhead.

It’s there that the steelhead, which are listed as federal endangered species, may stay for a year to feed and become acclimated to salt water before venturing out into the ocean.

LINK (Via:The Press Democrat)

Meanwhile on the Trinity -

US expands laws protecting Atlantic salmon

The federal government dramatically extended protection yesterday for the imperiled wild Atlantic salmon in Maine, declaring that the few remaining sportfish in the Penobscot, Kennebec, and Androscoggin rivers and their tributaries are endangered.

Maine officials are not pleased.

LINK (Via: The Boston Globe)

An Unsightly Algae Extends Its Grip to a Crucial New York Stream

Esopus Creek, a legendary Catskill Mountain fly fishing stream that is an integral part of New York City’s vast upstate drinking water system, is one of the latest bodies of water to be infected with Didymosphenia geminata.

LINK (Via:The NY Times)

As Wind Power Grows, a Push to Tear Down Dams

Environmental groups contend that the Bonneville Power Administration’s shift to wind turbines buttresses their case for tearing down dams in the agency’s territory, particularly four along the lower Snake River in Washington State that helped decimate one of North America’s great runs of wild salmon.

LINK (Via: The NY Times)